


convergence

by beastofthesky



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, Identity Reveal, Lore Cards, M/M, Relationship Over Time, Tender But They Certainly Pretend Otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 17:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21341722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofthesky/pseuds/beastofthesky
Summary: n.: the tendency or movement toward one point or one another
Relationships: The Drifter/Shin Malphur
Comments: 10
Kudos: 86





	convergence

**Author's Note:**

> thank you again to key for proofreading! and for letting me go on and on about these two absolute idiots.

**i. log/entry/171.3411.start**

TYPE: Transcript  
DESCRIPTION: Conversation  
PARTIES: Two [2]. One[1] Guardian-type, Class N/A [u.1]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter [u.2]  
ASSOCIATIONS: Gambit; Drifter; WoS; Yor, Dredgen; Yor, Shadows of; Malphur, Shin; The Nine; The Emissary  
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//  
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[footsteps; distortion; high ambient ΛCDM detected]

[u.1:01] Could’n’a chosen a worse way to fuck my day up.

[u.1:02] Hey, brother, you still kickin’?

[scuffle; no weapons discharged; no Light radiation detected]

[u.1:03] Whoa, there. Look, you overstayed your welcome. Nothin’ personal. I got shit to do, you probably got shit to do, people to kill, whatever it is you Shadows are up to nowadays.

[u.2:01] Playing with the Taken is a dangerous gamble.

[u.1:04] Only if you don’t rig the game.

[u.2:02] Heh. Maybe it _is_ better to leave you for Shin Malphur to find.

[u.2:03] See if your hand plays out.

[u.1:05] Oh, I promise you it will.

* * *

**ii. quickdraw**

The gun doesn’t feel right in his palm – some Crucible cannon he’d pawned off Shaxx, flashy and bright red – but he refuses to pull out his trump card, make that final play. Not yet. Not now. Even this farce of a hand cannon, heavy and slow and nothing like the snappy weight of the Word, is uncomfortably close to showing this man who he really is.

“The hell were those things,” he snarls, voice reverberating in his helmet, filtered low and flat. His other hand is fisted tight in Drifter’s robes, forearm pinning him against the crumbling brick wall of some ancient building.

Drifter smiles slow and sleazy, like an oil slick.

“Not payin’ attention to my callouts?” he asks. “Primevals, brother. Everyone loves a good boss fight.”

Shin angles the gun against Drifter's temple, making it clear what he thinks of _that_, and Drifter just laughs.

“What, last round didn’t get you riled up?” he goes on, voice falling low, and that twisting smile plays through every word. “Didn’t get you _excited?_”

Shin is hyperaware of everything between them – the distance, the lack thereof, the lies and half-truths – and he makes a choice. He shifts, just an inch, into the hand that Drifter has braced against him.

That hand slides around Shin’s hip and behind his cloak, down towards his ass, and the space between them yawns like a chasm before Shin moves closer still, unmistakable in his proposition. Drifter takes his sweet time, hands ghosting over every (empty) holster on his hips, every mod slot on his chest. Shin feels like he’s drowning in the depths of how bad an idea this is by the time those clever hands slowly unclasp his armor and push his vest aside and Drifter murmurs, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

His breath is cool against Shin’s neck and heat rises deep in his core as Drifter’s teeth hit his skin, sharp and electric, leaving something that might be a mark.

This is a mistake. The Drifter is a dangerous man, and today's stunt with those _things,_ those Primevals, only proved that point a thousand times over.

And yet.

And _yet_.

“What’s your game, Drifter?” Shin asks– sighs– groans— and he’s impressed with the steadiness of his voice as Drifter moves on, pushing aside clothing and armor, infuriatingly meticulous about it.

“Gambit,” Drifter replies simply, the smug, self-satisfied smirk Shin feels against his neck is what makes him give in completely, holstering the gun and pushing aside Drifter’s robes, heat rising as he slides a hand against cool skin. “What’s yours?”

* * *

**iii. subsistence**

So everything was a lie. Fine. His life was balanced on the edge of a knife, at the whim of a madman with a Golden Gun. _Fine_.

But something about this burns in a way he’s never felt before. It’s not the festering wound that Orin (no she’s not, not anymore) left in her wake and it’s not the sick heavy weight of Eaton and it’s not the countless other losses that shaped him into this.

He’s angry, and it burns. It burns every time Shin meets his eyes in Gambit’s transmat zone, pretending to be a Guardian; it burns the first time he shoves Shin against the alley wall and they sink into each other like nothing has changed, and it burns every time after.

Drifter realizes much too late that the only thing fire leaves behind is ashes.

* * *

**iv. outlaw**

Drifter grabs Shin by the vest and shoves him back, pulse thundering in his ears.

"What's your game, Malphur? Huh?" Shin looks at him evenly, carefully, and it only ratchets up the tightness in his chest, the fear and anger knitting itself into his veins. Drifter drops his hands and wills them not to shake. "I just had a real interestin' cannon show up in that Gambit match. And my favorite Guardian was _real_ cagey on why _that_ gun showed up on the kill feed just weeks after The Last Word was the talk of the town in Shaxx's arenas."

Shin straightens his cloak, and Drifter feels like he’s on the verge of an explosion by the time he answers.

“What do you want me to say? That I’m going to gun down your star player?”

Drifter laughs, then. He can’t help it. It’s hollow and too loud, bitter as anything.

“So that’s it,” he says. “That Guardian – my _friend_ – fell through on one of your cryptic fuckin’ morality tests and tomorrow I get to hear about how a hero of the Red War got cooked alive by the Man with the Golden Gun.”

“No,” Shin says, and his whole face darkens. “That’s not what’s–”

“Then _enlighten me_,” Drifter snarls. “Show me you're not settin' someone up for a blind trip down a path they won't come back from. I know you’re a liar, Shin. Tell me you’re not a monster.”

“I am a liar,” Shin says, lip curling. They’re close, now, closer than Drifter ever intended, and the anger is still boiling dangerously under his skin. Heat radiates off of Shin. “I’m not a monster. I don’t kill for fun.”

“Nah, just for _justice_,” Drifter spits.

“You know what kind of bait Gambit is, you know what kind of people it draws,” Shin snaps back, swaying closer, and there’s something almost feral in his face now, defensive and dark and _god_ Drifter hates how much this does it for him. “You know what I am. You just don’t understand–”

Drifter kisses him.

It’s Pavlovian. He wants Shin to stop talking and this is the basest, most instinctual way he knows how. Shin sucks in a gasp, then groans like it’s been punched out of him when Drifter sinks teeth into his lip.

“Then make me,” Drifter breathes against him. “I swear, Malphur. Ain’t nothin’ sicker than crossin’ someone like that. Tell me you’re above this.”

“I’m–” Shin’s hands find purchase on Drifter’s robes, his hips, and the iron heat of blood fills his mouth as Shin gives as good as he got, words lost to the space between them. “I’m not a– I’m–” Shin’s hands harden, then push. “Wait, _wait—_”

He backs off.

Drifter waits.

Shin’s lip is split from where he’d bitten it, and his eyes are still dark but leashed somehow, like he’s holding it together for a reason. He licks his split lip then touches his thumb to it, and his eyes slip closed, just for a second.

Drifter waits.

“I’m Shin Malphur,” he says slowly. Drifter raises his eyebrows and scoffs, gesturing a wordless _get on with it_. Whatever this is, it's hard for Shin to spit out. Drifter feels no sympathy. “And I’m Zyre Orsa.”

Drifter waits.

And then that name finds its way home.

“Oh, fuck you,” he hisses. “Fuck you. _Fuck you_.”

He draws Malfeasance with a sense of finality that rests like lead in his hand.

“Get out.”

* * *

**v. FULCRUM**

now ere we nine were held _**i**_dle here we nine were won

They learn so much by watching you, but not enough. I know you are a liar but nothing speaks more true than your actions and they betray each clever word that falls from your mouth.

You prick holes in fabric and claim that you rend but you draw thread through each careful shift of weave and weft.

I  
1PL=IRR.be.PROSP.INCHO  
—so much more\less than you thought.

I watch you in ways they do not and I know|Hope you will not repeat my mistakes.

I miss Namqi.

* * *

**vi. opening shot**

The Annex is mercifully empty when Shin walks in, but that means nothing in the face of Praxic surveillance. Drifter looks up at the sound of his footsteps, and Shin will forever deny how gratifying it is to watch as Drifter picks through all the layers Shin wears, all the ways he covers up all his identities. Drifter knows him just by the way he walks, no matter how grungy or mismatched or perfectly polished his armor is. Shin should hate it, the vulnerability. (He feels the diametric opposite.)

“Hey, brother,” Drifter says, and the edge of his smirk is hungry and sharp.

Shin nods back and hands in his bounties. Seconds later, Jaren’s Ghost blinks over a confirmation of Glimmer transferred to his account, and a couple items to the Postmaster. Mundane. Normal. Nothing that would get flagged on Praxic surveillance and set one Aunor Mahal back on Drifter's case. No voiceprints for her to use to link him to Drifter. Better that her attention stay focused just on Shin instead.

His last game had been close, too close, and he'd pulled through as his team's invader with a last-second kill that'd given them just the right edge over the opposing team. He's restless, full of energy, and having Drifter's attention all to himself is doing nothing to help.

“Did good work out there today,” Drifter tells him. “Nothin’ kills a Guardian faster than someone like you.” His eyes rove down to Shin’s hip, where Malfeasance is resting in cold silence.

Shin concedes with a small shrug and runs his thumb down the barrel, shifting his weight. Drifter’s eyes follow the movement and Shin smiles behind the cover of his helmet, in turn watching the slight uptick of the corner of his mouth, the cold light from the bank slanting across his face.

“You put that ol’ gun through its paces today,” Drifter says. His fingers touch the barrel of Malfeasance and he drags them up, towards the chamber, then over the hammer down to the grip, and then his hand is finally on Shin’s hip, touch light as air and all the more infuriating for it as his hand slides around to the base of Shin's spine. Drifter leans in and asks, “Had some frustrations to work out?”

_Yes_, Shin says with the press of his thighs against Drifter’s, an answering touch at his chest, hand curling into the overlap of Drifter's robes to pull him closer. _Yes_.

Drifter's voice has been light in keeping with their charade, but his hands are persistent as he runs them over the light, mobile Swordflight armor Shin's been favoring lately, brushing hungrily over Malfeasance again.

“I made that gun with one man in mind,” Drifter murmurs against Shin’s hood. “Can’t say I don’t like you wearin’ it.”

Shin has just enough presence of mind left to cut audio output just as Drifter presses in and slides a thigh between his, and he draws on the very last vestiges of his sanity to fingerspell _D-E-R-E-L-I-C-T-? _with his forearms braced against Drifter’s chest.

He feels it down to his core as Drifter laughs, low and sharp and full of promise.

* * *

**vii. Extrajudicial Affairs**

ACCESS: RESTRICTED  
DECRYPTION KEY: 73XK5V2PG1$AUN-326  
REP #: 072-VIP-0129  
AGENT(S): AUN-326  
SUBJ: Recent disappearances

1\. No further run-ins with VIP #0129 have been recorded since the incident during the investigation of VIP #1315 (See attached transcript: EARTH.EDZ.SALT.MINES). I do not believe he has stopped his “hunt”; I think he has simply moved beyond the Vanguard’s radar. I cannot overstate how dangerous a position this is.

2\. Previous intel seemed to indicate that #1315 is wary of #0129 (Cf. 1315.EARTH.EDZ.05), but when I confronted him about the threat that #0129 poses to certain Gambit players – and himself – he simply laughed and informed me that #0129 should be "the least of anyone's worries." Further responses were similarly oblique. I believe that #1315 has some insight into #0129’s movements and motives, or otherwise has some edge over him that we are unaware of and that he refuses to share. Logic points to a weapon he crafted for star Gambit players [Forgeable Blueprint Attached: Item REF# HC-204878059-MLF], but at no point aside from EDZ.05 did he imply the use of force.

3\. The only conclusion I can give is the same I arrived at before: #1315 is walking a line. I don't know what the line is or why he walks it, and now, I am less sure than ever of who else might be prowling that line, waiting for him – or anyone – to slip up.

4\. I formally recommend a surveillance detail be assigned to watch #0129's movements. No one else needs to fall to his unsanctioned wrath, noble as he may consider it. I do not suggest VIP #2014 for this task, due to recent involvement with #3801 and subsequent potential compromise. Ironically, I believe #1315 himself may be the best candidate for this, as he is, much like the Praxic order, unimpressed with #0129’s – forgive the ancient turn of phrase – cowboy justice.

MESSAGE ENDS

* * *

**viii.** **backup plan**

“It’s alright,” Shin says, twirling the hand cannon around one finger.

“_It’s alright_,” Drifter mimics, sneering, and he snatches the cannon out of Shin’s hands. “Gimme that. For your information, I’m told– and I quote– it fucks in Crucible.”

“I meant it’s _fine_,” Shin says, reaching out, and Drifter tucks the cannon away behind his back. Shin frowns at him.

“Gotta ask nicely,” Drifter tells him with a winning grin, and then he winks. “You can beg, if you like.”

Shin scowls at him outright. Drifter just laughs, and it takes a lot of Shin’s composure to keep scowling.

“Point of this is,” Drifter says, grabbing a handful of coins to fiddle with, “stop lookin’ for something to replace The Last Word with.”

“Just because you don’t want me to have that gun– ” Shin starts, still annoyed, but Drifter cuts him off.

“Nah, not that.” He flicks a coin into the helmet and it sails back out into his fingers in a neat arc. One day, Shin will stop pretending he’s not impressed. “I meant, stop thinkin’ _replace_. Just find somethin’ new to use. Isn’t that what all this is about? New beginnings?”

Shin stares.

Drifter gives him a long look, and his face turns uncharacteristically somber.

“Alright, look. Here’s the thing about loss. Not that you don’t know this.” Another coin, another bright _ping_. “Y’ain’t ever gonna replace the thing you lose. So stop thinkin’ ‘bout replacing it. Just find somethin’ else that’s gonna bring you joy, or satisfaction, or whatever.”

Shin keeps staring.

And then he takes a step closer. And then another. Drifter’s attention sharpens with each step, meeting Shin’s eyes and glancing down at his mouth, his hands, his waist. Shin stops just shy of plowing right into Drifter, not touching, and the smirk playing around Drifter’s mouth is softer than it should be, just a bit. Shin likes it like that.

“May I?” Shin murmurs, leaning in so their noses touch, and he makes sure Drifter feels the heat of his breath. He trails his hand down Drifter’s arm, trying to follow it to the gun he knows Drifter has tucked somewhere at his back.

“I dunno,” Drifter replies, and the smirk is back to its usual now, sharp and wicked. “Kinda like the thought of you beggin’.”

* * *

**ix. ix. ix. ix. ix. ix. ix. ix. ix. **

“No,” comes Shin’s quiet, sleep-rough voice, “I don’t think so.”

Drifter sits up. The sheets are still warm from Shin’s terrifyingly intense body heat, but his voice is coming from down the hall.

“You _know_ what it’s like down there,” another voice presses, with the telltale faintly tinny quality of audio via Ghost.

“Erin Morn has kept her Guardians safe so far,” Shin replies. “I’ve got no reason to believe that’ll change now. I can take a look at that Pit myself if you want, but I don’t know if we should all regroup.”

Drifter pulls all clothing-adjacent items into a heap and gets dressed as swiftly and silently as he can, not particularly caring to inspect what it is he’s pulling on aside from his own boots. His thickest robe is missing, though, and ain’t that a bitch. He grabs something else suitably chill-repellant, wraps it around his shoulders, and heads out into the Derelict.

“Say again?”

“I don’t know if we should all_—_”

“Signal’s weak. Orsa? You there?”

A faint light shines at the far end, making the frost glitter around the long shadow Shin casts. His head snaps up as Drifter approaches, and he raises a finger to his lips. Drifter gives him an easy, open-handed shrug in response, then grabs the fabric draped around his shoulders before it can slide off.

And Shin— Shin’s mouth falls open, just slightly, as his eyes snap to his cloak around Drifter’s shoulders.

“Orsa? Shit. _Orsa_.”

Drifter rolls his eyes and mouths _fuckin’ Hunters_ before waving his hand back at the Ghost.

“I hear you, Teben,” Shin says, sounding much more awake, eyes never leaving Drifter as he reaches out a hand in clear invitation, asking Drifter to come to him. And damn it all, Drifter does. His footsteps crackle softly in the frost, and he wonders how nothing's melted when Shin's overheated hand settles on his waist.

“You in a safe place? Call back if you need to. Don’t compromise_—_”

“I’m safe,” Shin murmurs, watching Drifter with an odd light in his eyes, fogged breath curling between them. “Gimme a minute. I’ll move to a better spot.”

He stows his Ghost without another word, transmission cutting off, and Drifter takes the opportunity to yank on Shin’s sleeve. On a _familiar_ sleeve.

“Fuckin’ thief,” Drifter says. “That’s mine.”

Shin breaks into a weird, crooked smile that looks like it can’t decide whether to stay or go, then smooths his other hand over Drifter’s shoulder.

“_That’s_ mine.”

“The transmat zone’s less baffled,” Drifter says, blowing right past any kind of moment Shin might attempt to be having. “Signal’s better out there.”

“Okay,” Shin says, still with that weird-ass sorta-smile on his face, and he fixes the cloak around Drifter’s shoulders, fussing with the way it drapes.

“Stop that,” Drifter snaps, and swats his hands away. Shin takes a step back, but Drifter still feels like he’s lost the battle somehow.

“You comin’?”

“Seemed like a personal call,” Drifter says carefully, watching Shin pick his way out onto the catwalks.

Shin just shrugs and says, “Saves me tellin’ you what it’s about.”

Drifter jogs after him before he can get too far away, and the tiny smile that ghosts across Shin’s face as his eyes snap right to the cloak is enough to make something awful and hot and choking rise up in Drifter’s throat.

Shin’s running hot enough that the air around him is warping ever so slightly, and Drifter hates that Shin pauses on one of the steps to press a brief, fleeting kiss to his mouth like they’re _something_, like they’ve not been playing an elaborate game for months, like this has any reason to be as good as it is, and he hates the satisfaction that rolls through every inch of his body when they touch. Shin brushes a hand over his cloak one last time before pulling out his Ghost again.

“You read me, Teb?” he asks.

Drifter moves carefully behind Shin, watching for any twitchiness, but Shin just leans back against him. He doesn’t know what to do about it. Settles on worming a hand into one of the pockets in Shin's pilfered coat, intending to find a coin he can fiddle with, and instead he finds that the thick fabric is superheated, perfectly warm, so he digs his other hand in, too, and doesn't think too hard about holding Shin like this. It’s fine.

“Much better,” Teben replies, relieved. “I’ve checked all apocrypha we have, and reached out to some contacts. There’s no mention of The Pit anywhere. Not by that name, at least. It’s either new, or so old that not even our work scratched its surface.”

Drifter noses against Shin’s neck and makes a face when his beard catches against the faint stubble Shin’s let grow.

“I can go,” Shin repeats, and his voice is heavy.

“Let me see what Eris has to say first,” Teben replies. Drifter kisses behind Shin’s ear, under his jaw. Maybe in a parallel universe it would have been teasing, but it’s really, really not, and Drifter lets his eyes fall shut. Shin sighs like a weight’s been lifted off of his shoulders. “I’d prefer if none of us had to go back under the Moon’s surface,” Teben adds, “but someone will have to go.”

Drifter’s fingers bump against a coin, deep in one pocket. It’s ice-cold in spite of Shin’s warmth.

“We’ll make it work,” Shin says. “Keep us updated.”

Drifter wraps the coin in his fist.

“You too. If you hear anything through your channels, or if you hear anything– you understand– let me know.” Teben sighs. “Be safe, Orsa.”

His fingertips make out the sharp, precise shape of a triangle.

“You too, brother.”

The transmission cuts out.

“Shin,” Drifter says, jade painfully cold in his hand, “don’t go.”

“I’m not,” Shin replies, and turns with a curious, searching look on his face. “What?”

“Don’t go,” Drifter repeats. All the warmth he’d felt earlier is replaced by ice, the Derelict’s pervasive chill sinking into his veins even as he pulls Shin forward by the lapels of his own coat, even as Shin’s hand curves around the back of his neck and strokes up into his hair. Each quiet sigh he drags out of Shin threatens to fan that spark back into a wildfire but the cold between stars yawns endless and the fear fills him to the brim, numbing his fingertips.

“Drifter,” Shin murmurs, and a flame-hot hand closes around his, fingers gently prying open his fist. “This fight’s bigger than just now. I’m staying.”

“Shin,” Drifter says, but Shin’s mouth is on his again, persistent and warm, and there’s a touch at his cheek that’s so light he can pretend he didn’t feel it, pretend it didn’t make his gut twist into a thousand knots.

“Shin,” he says, “_Shin_,” and “stay,” and then he doesn’t say much at all and he thinks it might be a death knell, this name, a death knell for the doomsday herald these shitty cosmic forces want him to be.

By the time they get back to bed the heat that tries to rise between them is a slow simmer as Shin runs his hands over the cloak Drifter’s wearing and graces him with slow, heavy kisses as his hands roam, and Drifter lets himself drown in it.

Shin's right. The petty part of him won't admit it, but he's right. This isn't a fight to be decided now. He knows what's coming. Better keep his head down (Shin’s fingers run up into his hair) and bide his time (and back down, stroking along his spine), play it safe (and he presses his cheek against Drifter’s and sighs), keep running Gambit.

(_Keep playing the game_, her voice echoes, but what’s the fun in a game if you don’t rig it?)

Keep his Guardians close.

(He’s never pretended to be an honest man.)

Keep his enemy closer.

(Neither has Shin.)


End file.
